DNC ads hit Romney in the swing states

The Democratic National Committee is broadening its message campaign against Mitt Romney, going on the air in six television markets to call him a brazen flip-flopper who might as well be “two men trapped in one body.”

The ad features clips of Romney shifting positions on abortion and health care reform. One clip shows him pledging in Massachusetts, “I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose.” The next shows Romney saying: “The right next step … is to see Roe vs. Wade overturned.”

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The spot will air in five swing-state markets – Albuquerque, Raleigh-Durham, Columbus, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee – as well as Washington D.C. It directs viewers to a website, mittvmitt.com, where they can watch a longer version of the commercial. The DNC has also previously run anti-Romney ads in Arizona.

In addition to the ads, the DNC will hold anti-Romney messaging events Monday in a number of other 2012 battlegrounds, including Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire and Florida, along with Romney’s home state of Massachusetts. Those events will feature local state party chairs, as well as prominent state Democrats such as Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown.

Add it all up, and that’s a distinct escalation of the Democratic campaign to define Romney even before he has the Republican nomination in hand, and to set the terms of debate for a general election that supporters of President Obama hope will be fought in large part over issues of trustworthiness and character.